According to the 2016 State of Small Business Report, 71 percent of them expect to increase revenue in 2016, a 14 percent increase over 2015’s revenue optimism.

Their optimism is holding up in the face of a few big hurdles this year, namely hiring new employees, increasing profit, and employee healthcare. More than 1,100 small business owners and executives identified these items as their top three challenges for 2016.

In addition to identifying business challenges, the State of Small Business Report also investigated small businesses’ views on the economy, hiring, government, marketing practices, and use of information technology.

Check out a few highlights and let us know what you think.

I really like the use of the infographic to highlight a few key points to draw in readers to the full report.

A few things I would suggest that designers and publishers can learn from:

Make the fonts larger or make a larger version of the infographic image file available. Much of the text in the "full size" version is still too small to read.

Use a good description in the infographic image filename. This image was just called "Infographic-FULL-SIZE.png" which hurts you visibility with the search engines.

Visualize all of the data. When some data in an infographic is listed as text-only, it is perceived by readers as less important and often skipped over.

Include a copyright or Creative Commons license statement. I can't tell if there is one, it's too small for me to read.

Include the URL to the infographic landing page so readers can find the full-size original infographic when it appears on other sites that don't link back appropriately. I appreciate the link to the full report they are promoting, but readers also need the link to the infographic landing page.